Drunken Kiss
by KamikazeCreamPuff
Summary: Hatter, Alice, and a bottle of Wonderland wine of dubious vintage.


Once, Hatter returned from a visit to Wonderland with an enormous bottle of wine stashed under his arm.

Alice crossed her arms and looked suspiciously at the bottle as Hatter hopped around their kitchen. "How did you get that back through the mirror without it breaking?"

Hatter simply winked at her and flashed that damn dimple, looking absurdly pleased with himself. "Compliments of Charlie," he said instead, waving the bottle with wild flourishes as he rummaged through Alice's kitchen drawers.

"Middle on the left," she said absentmindedly, grabbing the bottle out of his hands before he could break it and looking for the year. "Five-Seven-Apple? Is that a date?"

Hatter scratched his head with the corkscrew he had just unearthed. "Yeah, I'm thinking… 140 years ago, your time? No… 150. 200? Something like that. Let's just round up and say this wine is a million years old."

Alice raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Well, seeing how ol' Charlie said he found it in the Red King's wine cellars, I figure I can take a wild guess."

"Emphasis on the 'wild'?"

"Oh, always," he said, popping the cork off the bottle. "What's say we have a taste, eh?"

An hour and three-quarters of a bottle later, Alice and Hatter were curled up on the couch, giggling uncontrollably. "No, no," Hatter said, gasping for air and wiping his eyes, "remember that time we went to that place with the purple clothes…"

"...And you said, 'played'!" Alice finished, and they both dissolved into a fresh wave of giggles. Alice's cheeks hurt from smiling, and her head felt light and fuzzy from too much wine, and too much of the Hatter's twinkling eyes, and there was his smile, and before she knew it her eyes were closed and his mouth was on hers.

Their lips crashed over each other clumsily, tasting of wine and fizz and so much laughing, hands grasping arms and tangling into hair and plucking at each other's buttons and zippers until Alice shifted her weight and the two of them tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor. Hatter laughed loudly, a deep and infectious rumble. He tightened his arms around Alice's waist and grinned up at her.

"You've had too much to drink," Alice pointed out.

"Excuse me," Hatter said, waving a finger in her face, "But I have been an expert drinker for… for a long time. I own a tea shop, remember, I'm very good at that particular verb. And you, miss Alice of Legend, have had just as much as me, so please kindly shut it."

"Hey!" Alice smacked his arm, but Hatter caught her hand and grinned, moving his head up to scoop her into another kiss. She moaned slowly as his tongue flicked across her lips before sliding inside, tasting of wine and the salt from the crackers he had eaten earlier and something else that was distinctly iHatter/i, like allspice. One of his hands slid slowly down her back to rest on her bum, which he squeezed possessively, causing Alice's knees to jerk up reflexively on either side of his thighs. Alice braced her hands on his shoulders and bent her head down to kiss the bit of exposed skin at his collar, and Hatter trailed warm knuckles back up her waist to brush the side of her breast, and Alice could feel the heat of his skin through the thin button-up shirt he was wearing, and then all of a sudden she remembered that they were still lying on the floor and perhaps they should move somewhere else.

"We – should – move," she mumbled between kissing up the side of his neck, and Hatter made a low noise in the back of his throat before turning his head to meet her lips with his own, and somehow over the next twenty minutes they were able to make their way into the bedroom without letting go of each other.

Hours later, Alice woke up from a heavy doze to find her head pillowed on Hatter's bare shoulder, just where she had left it. But her hand was not still left resting on Hatter's chest -- he was holding it in his own, staring at it as though stunned. Alice watched him examine her hand closely, turning it this way and that way, running his fingers softly down every tendon and vein like he was memorizing them.

"Hatter?"

He jumped, but did not drop her hand. Instead he turned his intense gaze onto Alice's face. For a few seconds, they just stared at each other as though they couldn't figure out how this had actually happened, and why were they here, and what were they going to do about it?

And underneath it all, the question of _and how did we get so lucky?_

"I missed you," he finally said, which was really a very odd thing to say in that particular moment. But Alice knew what he meant.


End file.
